APSU plans to offer criminal justice masters with homeland security concentration this fall
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – In February, a few days before the Super Bowl, residents in the small Florida town of Oldsmar came dangerously close to having high levels of lye in their drinking water. Hackers had breached computers in the town’s water plant. Luckily, the intrusion was caught before the lye reached local faucets, but the attack highlighted the potential threats now facing local communities across the country.
In the coming years, law enforcement agencies – police departments and sheriff’s offices – will need to hire more people with backgrounds in homeland security, and Austin Peay State University wants to be one of the state’s main locations for this type of training. That’s because the University’s Department of Criminal Justice plans to offer a new Master of Science in Criminal Justice degree next fall, with an optional concentration in Homeland Security.
This will be the first graduate degree for that department, and the only master’s program in Tennessee with a concentration in Homeland Security.
“The forthcoming Master’s program will serve the university, Fort Campbell, the Clarksville community, and the nation thanks to its online format and accelerated program design,” Dr. Scott Culhane, chair of the APSU Department of Criminal Justice, said. “Students will be able to complete this program in just one calendar year, thus helping them attain their career goals faster than other programs in the state and beyond.”
The proposed degree still needs the approval of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) – the region’s higher education accrediting body – but earlier this year, the Tennessee Higher Education Commission and the APSU Board of Trustees gave the department their consent to move forward with the new program.
Students completing the proposed Master of Science will be well versed in homeland security, law enforcement, courts, corrections, ethics, research methodology, current social issues, theoretical underpinnings, and complex challenges facing the criminal justice system and national defense. The program will also provide students with theoretical perspectives on domestic and international terrorism, domestic crime, and relevant criminal justice issues.
According to Hanover Research, the degree will appeal to “military affiliated students currently enrolled at APSU, as well as among the adjacent population of active duty Fort Campbell soldiers and their families.”
The research firm also found that “occupations in police and detective supervision often require a graduate degree and project to have the fastest growth among all criminal justice occupations,” and “the projected growth rate for the Tennessee criminal justice labor market is projected to grow 9.7%, a projection that outpaces both Southeast and national projections.”
For information on the proposed degree, visit https://www.apsu.edu/criminal-justice/.
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